Faller: Kevin Hogan, quarterback
Competing with: Drew Lock, Brett Rypien
This was not a good showing for Kevin Hogan.
Though it was a short day for the Broncos’ current backup, it was not a productive one as Hogan completed just three of his seven passes for 27 yards.
There were a couple of passes in particular that bothered me. The first one was a third-down play where the Broncos split Theo Riddick out wide. Hogan put the ball well above Riddick’s right shoulder and while Riddick could have adjusted and made a bit of a difficult catch, the ball fell incomplete.
The second throw was another third down play where Riddick ran an option route out of the backfield and had nothing but grass in front of him as he burned the inside linebacker. Hogan overthrew him badly.
Add this to the list of missed plays by Hogan, which unfortunately doesn’t come with as much grace when you’ve started games in the NFL before.
If you think about the dilemma the Broncos are facing here, they’re looking at the option of possibly keeping three quarterbacks — including Hogan — on the active 53-man roster. The question they have to answer is, if Joe Flacco goes down for any period of time, is Hogan worth having over Lock? Is there such a substantial difference between the two?
They have a few weeks to learn the answer to that question. In that timeframe, it’s possible we would see Brett Rypien truly get into the mix here as well, but it feels more and more like Rypien is bound for the practice squad.